WHEN BRIAN Binnie was a little boy, he would play at launching rockets on the green fields behind his home.

He would fire small wooden planes into the air using a rubber band, and when they reached their highest point, two wings would unfold to let the toy fall to the ground.

Forty years later, in 2004, a surprisingly similar system of aviation saw him ascend 69.6miles into space in a craft made of carbon composite materials, before a set of folding wings shifted up from the fuselage and allowed him to glide gracefully down to Earth.

It took Brian several aviation and aerospace degrees, 20 years as a Navy test pilot and four years developing the world's first commercial passenger spacecraft - called SpaceShipOne - for him to become Scotland's first astronaut, and the 434th person to enter space.

Now the heroic flyer is paving the way for many more Scots to join him on trips to what he calls the "inky blackness" of space, and the ride of their life.

He is the test pilot for SpaceShipTwo, which will form the centrepiece of Sir Richard Branson's iconic space tourism project, Virgin Galactic.

The commercial flights to the stars could be up and running within two years, and Brian, 55, is about to begin test flights of the jets being developed in the Mojave Desert in California, the base for the craft's parent firm, Scaled Composites.

The small and dusty town, 100 miles north of Los Angeles, has become the world capital of commercial space flight since Brian's historic 2004 flight. At first glance, you would never guess that the cutting edge of 21st century aviation was being sharpened just a few blocks from the railroad and neighbourhood diner.

Brian offered to show the Daily Record around the hangars at the airbase turned spaceport, and the friendly pilot said that he hopes as many Scots as possible follow in his jet wake and sign up for the Virgin Galactic flights when they start in the near future.

When the flights are launched, Brian said that the first passengers will have an experience as much fun as his own, but a lot more comfortable.

More than 200 space tourists have already signed up to pay £130,000 for the initial launches.

SpaceShipTwo will be carried into the air by a mother ship, WhiteKnightTwo, which will then release the passenger craft at 50,000 feet.

The smaller vehicle then ignites rockets and shoots up into space, reaching a height of 62.5miles, where the engines are switched off and the six passengers and two pilots get to enjoy four and a half minutes of weightlessness floating around the cabin.

The wings then fold up above it, turning the craft into the most graceful glider in history, so it can softly fly back down through the atmosphere for a smooth landing on terra firma.

Brian said: "Flying into space was a total joy. You can see pictures and videos, but none of them do it justice when you look out and see Earth, and all that separates it from the black void of space is the thin blue electric light of atmosphere.

"I have no reservations about recommending it at all. It will be the ride of your life and will change your perspectives and outlook on just about everything, in a nice way."

Brian's flight in SpaceShipOne was the culmination of a four-year project for his company, who developed the craft as their winning entry for the X-Prize, a £6.5million award for the first private firm to send people into space and return them back safely.

Funded by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, the firm won the prize when founder Burt Rutan used a special material called carbon composite, which is much lighter but as strong as metal, to build the craft.

Rutan had also used the material to build the Virgin Global Flyer, the world's first all carbon composite aeroplane, and when Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson found out about the SpaceShip project, he decided to get involved.

But for Brian himself, the journey towards space started a much longer time ago.

Both of his parents were from Falkirk, and his father was working as a visiting professor at Purdue University in Indiana, when Brian was born.

When he was five, the family moved back to Scotland, and he grew up in Milltimber, Aberdeen.

Brian was given a prestigious honour by his hometown in 2006 when he was awarded an honorary degree by Aberdeen University, where his father lectured while his son was growing up in Scotland. Brian said it is one of his proudest moments.

"Even though I was born in Indiana, everyone else in the family is Scottish born, but I am a true blood Scot and my formative years were spent roaming around the countryside where I grew up near Aberdeen.

"I'm not sure where my flying came from, but one of my earliest memories is of playing around on a golf course with folding wing gliders that you would launch with a rubber band and, when they reached their highest point, the wings would fold down and we would chase them as they landed.

"You might say that my life was always going to be dominated by golf and rocket-powered gliders, as there is a similarity there.

"For as long as I am aware, I wanted to build aeroplanes and fly them. I did a masters in aeronautic engineering, aerospace engineering and fluid dynamics, it's always been part of my life."

When Brian was aged 15, his father accepted another visiting professor post, this time near Boston, so the family headed back to America, and Brian eventually joined the US Navy.

He recalled: "In 1968, a movie called 2001: A Space Odyssey came out, and then a year later, Neil Armstrong stepped on to the surface of the moon.

My parents gave me a painting commemorating Neil Armstrong's milestone, and it has followed me around my career. I still have it today.

"My mother would tell me that if she had been a boy, she would have wanted to be an astronaut.

"I didn't know what that was, so she would talk tome about rockets and spaceships, and maybe I didn't appreciate how they worked, but I knew that anything that got off the ground was in the right direction. All my focus was on aviation, but I always knew that there was this tier beyond it that was bolder, bigger, and brighter.

"I thought the Navy was a challenging outfit to fly for and if, along the way, the option came to join the ranks of NASA, I'd be in a position to do that."

As a test pilot, Brian flew just about every kind of modern military aircraft you can imagine, but he never got the chance to get his dream elevation. In terms of age and rank, his window for joining the astronaut programme was the late 1980s, but NASA froze recruitment in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster in 1986.

"I spent 20 years in the Navy, and left feeling a little unfulfilled that the space angle never played out. I didn't want to go airline or fly a desk, so I took a chance and came out to Mojave."

Brian first arrived in the desert town when he was hired as a test pilot by the Rotary Rocket Company, a firm who were trying to develop a commercial spaceship which would land using a helicopter style rotor blade system.

He helped develop the craft to a stage where it could fly but, when the firm shut down, he moved over the road in 2000 to work for Scaled Composites, the leaders of the private space programme.

"It was the chance of a lifetime, I wasn't going to get a second opportunity,"

Brian said. And then on October 4, 2004, he made his historic flight in SpaceShipOne. The craft went higher than it had ever gone before in previous test flights and helped make commercial passenger space flight a reality.

At the moment, the only way for a civilian to fly into space is by paying up to £13million to the Russian space agency, but Virgin Galactic expect to be launching their flights within the next couple of years, depending upon a rigorous safety and test pilot programme. It is hoped that the £130,000 ticket price could also be reduced in time in order to allow more people to take to the skies.

But Brian said that no matter what the price is, the experience would be worth every penny.

"When we flip the switch of the rocket engines, a sign in the cabin throws up a big number five, which is the amount of seconds left in your life before it gets dramatically changed forever," he said. "When it gets to one and that motor lights up, there's nothing subtle about it and it's like a tsunami sweeps through the cabin. There is nothing in your DNA or prior experience that gives you any sense of comfort.

"It's about the level of acceleration of an aircraft taking off from a carrier, about 0 to 150mph in three seconds, but it keeps going for a minute and a half and you're along for the ride of your life.

"When the engines cut out, it's the holy trinity of space travel - the quiet when the noise and vibrations go away, the view, where you can see weather patterns forming up to a thousand miles around, and the total calm and joy of weightlessness.

"It's an experience that will sell itself. I honestly don't believe Virgin will have to market this thing too much, because it is wonderful.

"I could spend all day telling you what it's like to fly into space and I wouldn't be spoiling it for you, it's unique for everyone."

With the test programme kicking off this year, Brian is sure Virgin Galactic will be a success, but admits he may take a back seat.

"To be honest, I think I'll have more value being the guy that helps train the new generation of Virgin Galactic pilots.

"It would be great if the commercial pilots at Virgin could start out as an airline pilot and end up on a space liner, but I don't really see myself becoming an operative on these things.

"Also, I'm no spring chicken and, at some point, you have to say that you have had fun with this and did what you wanted to do. It's less next stop the moon, and more like next stop, the golf course."

Brian Binnie may have been the first Scottish astronaut, but he certainly isn't the only Scot in the commercial space race.

The President of Virgin Galactic is Edinburghborn pilot turned executive Will Whitehorn, while the head test pilot for Virgin is David Mackay from Sutherland.

And as well as those three Scots high fliers, Scotland itself could play a big role in the space flights in years to come.

As well as the Mojave base, several registered space ports across America bidding for the chance to host Virgin Galactic flights and a space centre in Sweden, there could be a space launch site opened at RAF Lossiemouth in the north of Scotland.

David Mackay, 51, has been a Captain with Virgin Atlantic for the last 14 years, and also spent 16 years as a test pilot with the RAF.

He was one of four Virgin pilots selected to become Virgin Galactic test pilots, working closely with Brian Binnie and the team out in California, and he'll test aircraft and the spaceship to offer a perspective from the airline side of the industry.

He said: "This is an amazing project, and it's something I've always wanted to do.